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Archive for the category “Veggies”

Lacto-fermented veggies are very easy to make, full of good for you probiotics and are a nice balance to the rich, warm foods we have begun eating for the fall and winter. Sauerruben is made just like sauerkraut, only instead of shredded cabbage you’ll be thinly slicing baby turnips. This method is a very easy way to preserve the end of harvest bounty by making it even more nutritious and flavorful. The sauerruben will last for months in the fridge, if you don’t eat it all in the first few weeks!

Ingredients:

-Salt, 2 tsp per pound of veggies.

-Turnips, sliced or shredded. After much experimenting, I prefer sliced when using smaller, tender turnips. The turnips in this picture are delicious sweet, tender Hakurei turnips from our friends at Woven Roots Farm in Lee, MA.

Options per Quart mason jar-
1-2 clove garlic

and/or 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

and/or 1/2 tsp caraway seeds

Or get cray-zay and spice it up with everything!

Clean bottles filled with water make great weights to keep the veggies under their brine.

Method:

-Weigh your sliced turnips and measure out 2 teaspoons of salt for each 1 pound of turnips.

-Add sliced turnips into jar, sprinkling salt as you go. The salt draws the water out of the turnips creating the brine it will ferment in. Weight top, mashing the veggies a bit to compact them and encourage the brine to form. We used empty, cleaned beer bottles filled with water to weight the turnips and keep them under the brine.

-Keep the veggies submerged under the brine or risk nasty things happening. Add a little water if you don’t get enough liquid from the veggies.

-Store them at room temp somewhere where possible overflowing brine won’t cause problems, like a counter top with a pan under the jars to catch spills.

-Wait a few days, admiring the lovely bubbling. Taste every now and then.

-Put in the fridge to stop further souring, or keep them out for maximum sour awesomeness.

Now that Fall is officially here I’ve been getting into some new recipes for one of the seasons most versatile vegetables: cauliflower and her cousin, romanesco. Part of the Cruciferous family, one cup of cauliflower has more than 73% of your daily vitamin c! Cauliflower can also help you to detox, it’s got anti-inflammatory properties and is an excellent source of dietary fiber. As you’ll see from the wide variety of recipes I’ve gathered here, cauliflower is super versatile and full of as much flavor as nutrition. Happy Autumn eating!

From LowCarbSlowCarb.com

My first recipe suggestion is to make rice out of cauliflower, a low carbohydrate, high fiber, nutrient packed alternative to a grain side dish. I’ve eaten this rice as a side with baked chicken, in lettuce wraps with shredded pork, basically it can be substituted anywhere you’d usually use rice. How cool is that? Check out this super simple recipe on www.lowcarbslowcarb.com under, you guessed it, Cauliflower Rice!

Cauliflower Steak au Poivre by Jacky Hackett

Next up, Cauliflower Steaks. This recipe was sent to me by a friend who I have shared many a steak tartare and pork chop with so I knew it had to be delicious. I was a bit skeptical but he assured me this was no wimpy vegan alternative, it’s filling, awesome plant food thank you very much! The recipe I like best comes from www.jaxhouse.com, aka Jacky Hackett, a food enthusiast mom blogger. You can find her simple and easy recipe under ‘Cauliflower Steak au Poivre. The trick is using your cast iron skillet in a very hot oven and the results are wickedly good.

Photo from TheIronYou.com

This last recipe is sure to convert you to the power of what you used to think of as a bland white vegetable: The Cauliflower Grilled Cheese. Yes, it’s gluten free, it’s a full serving of veggies and it’s got a gooey cheese center. This recipe can be found on www.TheIronYou.com a blog run by a guy named Mike who thinks we could all eat better and exercise more for a more awesome us, I think he’s onto something! Search for ‘Cauliflower Grilled Cheese’ and you’ll find a recipe for what will become one of your fall favorites, no matter what your relationship is to gluten. Pair this with a hot bowl of tomato soup and call it lunch.

Be sure to check out the other recipes and ideas these bloggers have to offer!

This recipe was sent to me by my friend Helen, yes, she’s a nurse and she knows what’s good for us- whole, organic foods! This quick pickle recipe is an excellent way to preserve all those cucumbers that have taken over your garden. Raw cucumbers are a cooling summer food. When combined with some hot pepper, garlic, ginger and vinegar these pickle become a perfect fall condiment or snack. Enjoy!

Last weekend Dana and I spent just 45 minutes – plus gathering materials- to build this sweet little pallet garden! We have a lot of pallets at our warehouse in Pittsfield, so, if you like this idea and want to make your own, please email me: Amy@FireCider.com and we’ll hook you up with as many pallets as you’d like. Someone mentioned to me they were concerned about the pallet wood being treated with chemicals. That is a worry for international shipping pallets, as those are treated, but the ones we get are used for shipping only in the U.S. and are made from the cheapest (it costs money to chemically treat wood!) scrap wood available. We picked a pallet that was sturdy and unpainted, made of plain, raw wood. I can’t wait to pick lettuce in a few weeks!

Use the top of the pallet, with the most boards/small spaces for the front. Tack weed cloth all around the back, bottom and sides, this will help keep the dirt inside the pallet. Leave the top open so you can grow taller plants/flowers in that space.

Using a tacker to cover the back, bottom and sides with weed cloth.

Now tack a thin board over the back of the pallet to keep it stable so the dirt doesn’t fall out.

So, can you tell Dana was taking these photos?! We used a thin board leftover from packing material to cover the back of our pallet.

Lean your pallet against a fence or building at an angle and fill it with organic dirt. Pack it in well so that it’s filled up and won’t wash out when it rains.

About 5 bags of dirt should do.

Now plant each row, in the spaces between the front slats.

Planting herbs, flowers, lettuces and more!

Water regularly and enjoy your little garden! I’ll be sure to post updated photos of our pallet garden on our Facebook page once things get growing. Here’s how it looked five days after we planted the seeds:

Radishes are taking off with herbs, lettuce and flowers not far behind.

This past Father’s Day weekend I did what all good children do: grilled with my dad! It was really fun, especially since I was trying out a new marinade that Chef and Butcher James Burden recommended to me. I went to Berkshire Organics in Dalton to stock up on everything we needed for dinner. I picked up fresh, organic veggies: eggplant really soaks up marinade so it’s great for grilling, plus onions, zucchini and some red and orange bell peppers.

Red Apple Butchers, at Berkshire Organics, had 30 day, dry aged steaks, so I had to try a few of those. And I also bought about 2 and 1/2 pounds of chicken thighs with the skin on. Here’s the marinade recipe plus a bonus curry mix from Mark Bittman’s How To Cook Everything, which is as useful as it sounds. Last week I wrote to Mr. Bittman about Fire Cider and his assistant wrote me back saying she had tried it the last time she was in the Berkshires and would be happy to share a sample bottle with her boss. How cool is that?!

Marinade for 2-3 pounds of Chicken

Yes, of course you can use this marinade on tofu, fish or veggies. For fish and veggies, about 20 minutes in the marinade will do. For meat, like the chicken, make the marinade the day before and let the meat marinate overnight. I made double this recipe, one half for the chicken and one half for the veggies.

First, make up the fragrant curry powder blend, this will make enough for this recipe plus plenty left over for all your curry spice needs, it’s awesome on pop corn!

Mark Bittman’s curry blend.

Get the spices together and toast the spices in a dry skillet.

Whole spices ready to toast!

Mmm, toasty and very fragrant!

Use a small spice grinder to turn toasted spices into powder and then add powdered ginger and turmeric. Homemade curry powder!

Once you’ve made the curry blend, combine all the marinade ingredients in a bowl.

Yes, that’s a gallon of Fire Cider. Beware the underdose!

Pour all the marinade over the chicken and marinate over night in a sealed bag or sealed container.

The next day, when you are ready to cook, remove the chicken, discard any leftover marinade and grill the chicken til it’s done!

For veggies: chop bite sized pieces of onion, bell peppers, zucchini and eggplant, make up more marinade and marinate for about 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally to coat each piece. Slide onto skewers and grill with the chicken.

Grill ready chicken, veggies and steak.

The 30 day dry aged steaks were perfect as is so I let them sit out at room temp for about an hour, lightly salted them and then grilled them for a few minutes on each side for perfectly rare, melt in your mouth awesomeness.

Join us on Saturday March 8th at 7 pm for an intimate opportunity to learn about cooking with Fire Cider. Let Dottie’s, Carolann Patterson and the founders of Fire Cider show you how to really showcase it in your cooking!

Dottie’s chef will be featuring Shire City Herbals, co founder, Amy Huebner’s healthful, mindful recipes as well as recipes from the Fire Cider Cookbook. You will take home an 8 oz bottle of complementary Fire Cider to experiment with and Enjoy!

This recipe is short and spicy sweet! This is from a Fire Cider fan I met at the Big E, and it’s my favorite kind of recipe: there’s lots of room to make it your own and it’s super quick to whip up. Fresh dill is generally available year round and if you like it, consider growing your own on a sunny window sill!

Ingredients:

2 parts sour cream

1 part mayo

Fire Cider to desired consistency and taste

salt and pepper to taste

lots of fresh dill

Method:

Finely chop the dill and mix it well with the rest of the ingredients. Taste and adjust seasonings. Enjoy as a snack with fresh veggies, flax crackers or corn chips!

This is Brian’s raw salad recipe and it’s ready to eat in just a few minutes. If you have a garden or know someone who does, chances you’ve got fresh, crispy green beans in your fridge or backyard right now. I love to eat them raw, straight off the plant, something I started doing as a kid, grazing in my dad’s garden. If you want to fancy up your beans a bit, try this:

Grab a couple of fistfuls of fresh raw green beans and cut each one into bit sized pieces.

I love Joe’s new recipe, it’s made using many of my favorite foods and flavors. Avocados are full of vitamins, fiber and healthy fats, the kind that protect your heart, have anti-inflammatory properties and also taste really, really good. Black beans, and beans in general, have a bit of a bad reputation for being difficult to digest. Don’t avoid this super food because of improper cooking! It’s easy to cook delicious, digestible beans, using a crock pot and adding kombu seaweed during the cooking process. You can find easy to follow instructions on the website Nourishing Days.com under the post titled, ‘Why Beans Are Hard to Digest & 8 Tips For Making The easier on the Belly’

Alternatively, canned beans are super convenient and when combined with plenty of good for you fats, like the olive oil and avocado in this recipe, they are an easy to digest source of vegan protein and fiber. This quick and easy salad is full of flavor that gets better with time. Take this to your next picnic or pack it for lunch!

The following recipe was created by local Berkshire County Chef Joe Dewey. Joe has been helping us in the Fire Cider kitchen and he’s come up with a whole bunch of exciting new recipes for us. So if you love this, stay tuned for next week’s Fire Cider blog post by our new guest chef!

Chop the avocado, tomatoes and onion into bite sized pieces. Roughly chop the herbs, mince the hot pepper and garlic.

Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and marinate together for 1 hour on your counter or in the fridge, well covered.

Aside from eating this salad with a spoon, it’s a great take along meal for school or work and is delicious with corn tortilla chips. Or eat it over salad greens that have been lightly salted, tossed, lightly oiled, olive is fine, tossed again and then squeeze fresh lime juice on top, add Avocado and Black Bean Salsa and perhaps some grated cheddar cheese? Or roll this salsa up in a large corn tortilla with some baby spinach, queso fresco and top with hot sauce. Basically, any way you eat this, it’s good and good for you!

Elise came up with this new marinated salad using Fire Cider and Cajun seasonings to bring some sweet heat to the seasons freshest veggies: corn and tomatoes! Pick some up on your next trip to the farmer’s market and then give this recipe a try. And remember, you can stop by and see Elise at the Fire Cider booth at select Sowa Farmer’s Markets til the end of October.

Ingredients:

Garlic 1-3 cloves

1/2 medium white onion

4 ears corn cut off the cob

2 ripe tomatoes

1-2 cups Black, kidney or other beans

Fire cider

Lemon juice

Cajun spices, for example: one teaspoon each paprika, coriander, cumin and dried oregano; one-quarter teaspoon each cayenne pepper and cinnamon.

Cumin

Salt

Pepper

Honey

Method:

Finely dice the onions and garlic, and marinate in fire cider with lemon juice, salt, pepper, cumin, honey, and Cajun spices, all to taste, in a large bowl. Add diced tomatoes and beans and stir to combine. Set aside.

Heat a cast iron skillet on high.

Toss corn and your favorite Cajun spice mix with a small amount of olive oil in a bowl and then add to the hot skillet.

Cook until corn begins to brown/crisp, stirring often. Taste and add more spice of you’d like!

Add the hot cooked corn to the onion tomato and bean mixture and let it marinate for at least an hour at room temperature.